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The leader Miguel Díaz-Canel visited the Havana municipalities of Cerro and Marianao this Friday to meet with the Municipal Defense Councils and urged them to take advantage of the recently approved economic reforms, in what the official site of the Presidency described as an exchange on "the responses to the difficult situation the country is facing."
"The municipalities must prepare to assume municipal autonomy; local companies must prepare to take on business autonomy; you must prepare to manage businesses with foreign direct investment, closed financing schemes in foreign currencies, and dealings with Cubans living abroad and within our own country," emphasized the leader.
The visit comes at a time when both municipalities are experiencing some of the worst power outages recorded in the capital.
This Friday, the Antonio Guiteras thermal power plant, the largest generation unit in the country, went offline due to its 17th breakdown so far in 2026, which further exacerbates a deficit that started July with over 2,100 MW against a demand of 3,200 MW.
In Marianao, a municipality that Díaz-Canel visited to discuss prosperity, residents of the Zamora neighborhood protested on Tuesday shouting "Freedom!" after more than 24 hours without electricity and several days without water.
The regime blames the crisis on the U.S. embargo and what it calls a "petroleum blockade," but the reality in both municipalities includes a lack of equipment for waste collection, with waste burning becoming normalized specifically in Marianao, and thousands of citizens without access to drinking water.
Díaz-Canel's speech was based on the 176 economic transformations approved on June 18 and 19 by the Communist Party of Cuba and the National Assembly, respectively, marking what is considered the largest reform package since 1959.
The measures include municipal decentralization with the authority to attract foreign currency and foreign direct investment, private banking, and the removal of the worker limit for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
However, implementing these measures requires modifying more than 148 legal provisions and approving 32 new regulations, and economists like Mauricio de Miranda have warned that, without democratic checks and balances, the opening could lead to a "Russian-style transition" that would benefit the elites of the PCC.
In the meetings this Friday, Roberto Morales Ojeda, a member of the Political Bureau and Secretary of Organization of the Central Committee of the Party, also participated. The tours began in the Playa municipality and will extend to the rest of the municipalities in Havana, according to the source.
Díaz-Canel concluded his message with a long-term promise. "In such a way that we will reach a moment when we unleash all productive forces at the municipal level, to improve the levels of supply to the population, purchasing power, and the salary-price relationship in the shortest time possible, leading us down a path toward prosperity."
The average state salary in Cuba is currently equivalent to about 13 dollars per month.
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